Reading about schools disallowing the use of red ink for correcting exams and assignments , though it still stimulates my upchuck reflex, surprises me less and less. Now, if only my brain would stop dry-heaving.
The fall semester has just begun. Students are back (groan), which means goodbye peaceful campus, hello long lines at Chipotle, to say the least. It also means that I am officially in my third year of gradschool. First year is generally bad, a throw-away year or induction-to-hell type of year. The second year, they warn, is worse. I made it through the first year relatively unscathed, and I lived through the second year, which was, indeed, way worse than the first.
Yay?
I’m not seeing smooth sailing just yet. My ass is still getting cooked in the firing pit for failing the quals last fall. My thesis is still in the works, now due for editing in October, and to be submitted in December. Yes, yes, I had originally planned to be done with the beast by the end of August, but due to a lack of communication between the boss-man and the division coordinator, that had to be pushed back. And of course, the miscommunication was loaded onto my conscience in the passive agressive stylings of my boss-man. Fine-print: Big brother is watching you. Fine-print: you’re hanging on by the skin of your teeth. Fine-print: don’t blow it. No, wait, the last one wasn’t fine print; I got that one straight up in the middle of the office. Outloud. At least it was delivered with a smile.
I used to have anxiety problems. I’m not going to discuss THOSE issues because they’ve been handled, but I think that once an anxiety patient, always an anxiety patient. It’s like alcoholism. The only way to live with anxiety…is to come to terms that you do, in fact, live with anxiety. I haven’t had an anxiety attack since ’05. I’ve had plenty of stress, but little in the way of anxiety. Nowadays, however, the stress-anxiety line is starting to blur. I’m intense and emotional, sure, but I’m not a drama queen. In fact, I’m overly rational, so rational that I’m unhealthily inclined to downplay stressess. Despite being overly rational, however, I know when stuff is starting to get to me…and stuff is really starting to get to me.
For the first time in as long a time as I can recall, I feel really insecure. Like low self-esteem insecure. Like the jealous-bitchy-craving-of-possitive-attention-and-praise-and-approval kind of insecure. If I had to wager a guess, I’d say I’m not managing stress very well right now. Academia is a tough nut to crack, and I could make a whole lot of jokes about the academic world being full of nutcases, but really, it is. The research institution life-style is not normal.
Gradschool is a terrible imposition to place on self-reflective persons such as myself. I’m envious of others’ abilities to not give a shit, to not get down on themselves when the boss picks on their flaws. And no, I don’t mean research flaws, I mean personal ones. I’m used to scruitiny. I’m used to moderate marks – never was an A student. But I’ve never felt like I sucked at what I do…until now.
I saw plenty of red pen back in my day, and not until the half-way point of a PhD program did strong criticizm start claw away at my self-esteem. I think it’s reasonable to become put off and discouraged under the intensity of graduate research, especially when one is the subject of repetitive whuppings. But this is gradschool. It’s not fair, it hurts my feelings, it kills my ego. So it goes.
I can’t imagine what state I’d be in if I hadn’t ever recieved negative feedback in gradeschool….
Oh well, on with it, I guess.
